Chapter 22 : Machine Gun of Love

The girls gathered in the square had many things in common.

They hated their homes.

They hated the smell of trash bags left to rot throughout the house.

They hated the gritty rice of convenience store lunch boxes eaten alone.

When they ran away from their unbearable homes and headed to the square.

They wondered.

Why do adults say they have no money but go to that street to spend money?

Why do they throw away the things they liked and head to that street?

Why did they go out like that and never come back?

The three girls waited, each holding an item their unreturning families had liked.

Praying that their families would discover the items they held and return like before.

They waited for years in the square overlooking that street.

* * *

On the building rooftop, someone had followed me.

A curly-haired girl wearing an aviator jacket who introduced herself as Rena.

She greeted me with a smile as if glad to see me, her eyes covered by aviation goggles.

“It’s an honor to meet the noble magical girl of [Beginning]!”

“…”

I was slowly becoming angry listening to what she was saying.

What? Noble? Honor? Is she in her right mind?

The faces of people fleeing in terror.

The expressions of people clinging to and crying to the police who had saved them.

I was angry at this person grinning after causing a disturbance in front of all these innocent people.

A rage that hadn’t risen even towards the security guards who had shot at me.

That rage was boiling up at this moment.

Anger welled up towards these people who had nearly harmed, or may have harmed, innocent people.

“Don’t talk nonsense. To have such an attitude after causing a disturbance.”

“Ah… that’s true.”

“You knew and still did it?”

“Don’t worry! Except for destroying Kabukicho buildings, we promised with Kohane and Nanami not to hurt any civilians!”

Rena spoke with a bright smile as if it was no big deal.

“We just… vented a little until you came.”

“Vented?!”

I felt a headache coming on as I recalled Rena’s rampage I had seen on my phone.

To call it merely venting when using magical girl powers.

“There’s no way no one would get hurt when firing guns in the city center.”

“They were blanks, so don’t worry. We decided not to engage in full-scale violence until we saw you.”

“…”

I couldn’t fathom this person’s psychology at all.

Rena was a character who showed an exceptionally incomprehensible madness even among those who appeared in the original work. From her past mentioned in the story, there was only a reference that she had received the power of blooming gathered through struggle from the alliance and carried out something alone.

‘Does she think she’s indebted to me since that last broadcast?’

I felt these people, who revealed pure but sharp malice and worship, were more threatening than those who had approached to harm me.

‘If left alone, they might cause an even bigger accident.’

Magical girls who precariously maintain the line between reason and emotion.

I thought that if I just let this moment pass, they might reach a point of no return.

Why do they seek my approval for destroying Kabukicho?

Why do they have such a solemn resolve to destroy Kabukicho?

What is the true heart of these people?

“…”

Let’s give these people one chance.

Is what they have pure malice, or just a momentary impulse?

Tap!

Tap!

I tapped my staff on the ground, and saw Rena focus on me at that sound.

“Why do you think you need my approval to destroy Kabukicho?”

“That street…”

Rena couldn’t continue speaking for a moment as she looked at Kabukicho spread out beyond the building.

The street that lured people with its glamorous night scenery was now filled with cold silence due to the commotion in broad daylight.

Numerous emotions flashed through Rena’s eyes as she just stared at such a street.

Anger

Sadness

Pain

Despair

Loneliness

“That street swallowed everything.”

“…”

“Our happiness, past, dreams, future, everything.”

“…”

“To us who were slowly rotting away in the shadows hidden by the light that street emits…”

Rena pointed at me with slightly trembling fingers.

An overflowing expression.

An expression wanting to scream.

An expression hoping for someone to understand.

Rena looked at me with a face mixed with numerous expressions and slowly placed her trembling hand on her chest, closing her eyes.

It was reminiscent of a praying posture.

Not blessing or wishing for someone.

Just a posture of depending on and worshipping someone.

“You… only you affirmed that we could shine on our own.”

Was Rena recalling the dream of the debutante?

“Unlike that street that treated us as non-existent and only took from us, you gave us dreams and power. We wanted to have our feelings acknowledged by you, at least.”

Or was it some nightmare from the past?

Rena’s blue eyes, looking at me with a desperate expression while slowly removing her goggles, were impressive.

“Can’t you watch over us as we are, just once?”

“…”

“If you acknowledge our feelings just once, we’ll do anything you say.”

What she showed was madness full of anger that had subtly rotted and grown moldy.

Even if they ran amok to their hearts’ content after removing all civilians from that street, another Kabukicho would just spring up somewhere else.

I don’t know what kind of past they have, but I could be certain that destroying the street wouldn’t bring back what they lost.

Nevertheless, anger that won’t be resolved unless acted upon right now.

They must have been going through hellish days with that anger piling up, slowly filling their hearts over a not short period of time.

If there was a single ray of hope in those hellish days, for these girls it must have been that unreasonable anger.

Because they knew all too well that it was unreasonable, they just wanted to vent their anger hiding behind my name. That’s why I couldn’t affirm it.

“That can’t be a reason to harm other people.”

“…”

“Then are you confident?”

“Confident in what?”

“Confident that you can restrain yourself even if emptiness comes after giving in to that anger.”

Rena answered confidently with a deflated laugh as if she had received an obvious question.

“Of course! No matter how much irredeemable trash we are, if we just destroy that street…”

“It’s not just that street that made you fall into despair.”

“…”

“Aren’t the people in that street what you really want to get rid of?”

“B-But to you, the magical girl of [Beginning]…”

The desire to have their anger acknowledged as justified and the impulse to take unreasonable revenge right now were tangled messily, falling into contradiction.

I tried to see their true hearts while pointing out that contradiction.

“If you were worried about tarnishing my name, you shouldn’t have thought of getting permission through my name.”

“…”

“You’re cowards. Just cowards trying to avoid responsibility by pretending to believe in me.”

Rena’s face was gradually contorting.

The superficial smile she had maintained even while disparaging themselves as trash vanished fleetingly, and waves of distrust could be seen slowly building up between her raised eyes.

‘Yes, I was just a refuge for them.’

The anger that seemed about to burst, hidden under a thin mask.

Perhaps that was the responsibility they had passed on to Sumire in the original work. If so, what I needed to show was to confirm whether the anger they held was genuine.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Prove it yourselves.”

Snap!

A cheerful sound rang out.

Suddenly, the space where we were standing had changed from the building rooftop to in front of Kabukicho.

“Re-Rena-chan?!”

“Rena…?!”

“You guys!”

The two girls that Hana and Ichika had subdued and brought.

Nanami and Kohane had also somehow moved next to me.

Snap!

With the cheerful sound, the glass stars in the hands of the girls who called themselves ‘Salon’ began to shine.

Glass stars emitting two brilliant lights.

Fluorescent orange

Ivory

Khaki

The starlight that had been consumed as if the earlier rampage had been an illusion was filling up and shining dazzlingly in the glass stars of three colors.

“Don’t hide behind my name, prove it yourselves.”

I pointed at Kabukicho while speaking to the girls sitting blankly holding their shining glass stars.

“Prove what you truly want to do.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Kohane, who had been looking at me for a moment, stood up as if resolved.

Nanami, fixing her broken helmet, summoned her bike again.

Rena just staggered forward, her expression unseen.

A moment of silence.

And then a storm of destruction swept towards the street before their eyes.

Armor spewing fire.

A bike rushing out with a flash.

A shower of machine gun fire.

Click―Whirr―Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Vrooooom!

Ratatatatatatata!

Chaos ensued as the girls’ nowhere-to-go anger poured onto the street of pleasure.

“Uwaaaah!!! Help me!!!”

“Good heavens, what is this?!”

“No!!! My shop… my shop!!!”

Father’s memory.

Two machine guns that appeared behind Rena were smashing the roof decorated with neon signs.

People hiding inside the shops collapsed under the fallen roof.

It wouldn’t allow foreign soldiers coming in to make easy women their local wives.

Mother’s memory.

Nanami drove her motorcycle like a storm, smashing signs tempting passing people.

So that a young mother who might have come in dreaming of a night’s escape wouldn’t be captivated by the signs.

So she wouldn’t disappear after meeting eyes with a biker gang there.

She didn’t stop even as people fell after being hit by sign fragments.

Brother’s memory.

Kohane reloaded and pulled the rifle of the armor.

Bad shops that squeeze money from innocent otaku customers while playing with their hearts.

So that her innocent brother who just liked assembling plastic models wouldn’t go in there.

Even if young women came out with their cosplay outfits stained with blood.

The noise of destruction echoing through Kabukicho was a scream bursting from their wounds.

It was the cry of past times when no one had cared for them.

Every night they cried, raged, and were hurt there.

“We!!! Are!!! Here!!! Now!!!”

“Look at us!!”

“We are…!”

Children who had waited desperately for their families while holding toys in one hand had become girls while still children.

Time and souls were bound to the streets of Kabukicho.

“We are…!”

“Sob…”

“Hic…”

The girls who had been pouring out their anger without restraint sat down rubbing their chests.

The completely ruined streets of Kabukicho.

The echoes of screams and fear flowing out.

They could no longer bear all of it.

“This… this…”

“What we want…”

“This isn’t it…”

Emptiness.

Destruction to reclaim lost time and souls. But the more they burned buildings and hurt people, what was engraved was only wounds on their souls.

Because their anger was not ultimately for harming someone.

“I see.”

“Then it can still be undone.”

“It’s not too late yet.”

[Deception] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Dream World

Tap!

I lightly tapped my staff again.

Everything was an illusion.

A test to see their true hearts.

I decided to return dreams to these girls who had fallen into despair.